Drawing through Community
Drawing Jam is an online drawing group that emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic as a means to build community and stay connected with fellow artists during a time of isolation. Initiated by artist Yvette Molina shortly after lockdown began, the group quickly became a consistent and cherished source of creativity, joy, and support. Each week, we met virtually, from California, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, and Wales, England to draw from life, taking turns posing for one another. We kept things engaging by incorporating costumes, hats, wild makeup, and unique poses to add variety and fun to our sessions.
Though many of us have relocated during the pandemic and have occasionally visited one another over the years, we’ve never all been in the same room together—until now. Our upcoming residency at Goldey House in the Adirondacks marks the first time we will meet in person. Throughout the week, we’ll engage in daily group drawing sessions, while also pursuing individual artistic endeavors, hiking, foraging, and cooking together.
Collectively we have hundreds of drawings of each other. In November of 2021 we exhibited a selection of portraits at the Newark Arts Festival in New Jersey. We have furthered our collaboration efforts in various projects such as CookBook LookBook by Melissa Gerecci and an upcoming performance at the Tang Museum as part of the multi-year exhibition by Yvette Molina.
The community we’ve built online has been a vital source of connection and support through challenging times. Our residency at Goldey House is not only a celebration of the friendships and creative bonds we've formed, but also a moment to reflect on the journey we've shared as a group. We can’t wait to be together in the same space and honor the collective spirit that has sustained us.
BA Thomas (b. 1994) is a visual artist based in North Carolina, USA whose paintings of interiors and landscapes are simultaneously real and imagined: a compendium of images and moments culled from real-life sources and collaged into the canvas and paper in painterly scenes. She received Bachelor of Arts degrees in both studio art and psychology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. In 2025, she had a solo show in Paris at Brigitte Mulholland. Recently her work has also been exhibited at Felix Art Fair, The Salon by NADA, DIMIN, Blue Spiral 1, and Galeria Contrast. Thomas was a fellow at the Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency in 2021, and she has also attended ChaShaMa’s ChaNorth Artist Residency, No Boundaries International Art Residency, and NY Crit Club's Residency Program.
Dorry Spikes is a Welsh artist from Ceredigion on the west coast of Wales. She makes prints, drawings and paintings. Her work is influenced by language, place and memory. Dorry paints to navigate a shifting sense of home and belonging. She is interested in how devotion and attention can create moments of connection. Her paintings and drawings seek to capture the sensory and emotional immediacy of an itinerant existence and her own personal experience of living and searching for light in the darkness.
Group exhibitions include Y Lle Celf at the National Eisteddfod, Nepal Arts Council, APT Gallery London, Bankley Open, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Paint Talk and Lido Stores, Margate.
Keer Tanchak (b. 1977, North Vancouver, BC, Canada) lives and works in Dallas, TX. Tanchak received her MFA in 2003 from the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago and her BFA in 2000 at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec. Tanchak has presented solo exhibitions with JDJ | Tribeca, New York, NY (2023); Old Jail Art Center, Albany, TX (2023); 12.26, Dallas, TX (2023, 2021, 2020); Best Western, Santa Fe, NM (2022); Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX (2019); Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, TX (2017); among others. She has been in group exhibitions at Secrist | Beach, Chicago, IL (2025); Hashimoto Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA (2023); Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, Dallas, TX (2023), NorthPark Center, Dallas, TX (2023); Kirk Hopper Fine Arts, Dallas, TX (2023); Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, Fort Worth, TX (2023), 12.26, Dallas, TX (2020); among others.
Jenn Dierdorf (b.1978) is a visual artist working in painting and sculpture. Her work consists of feminine tropes reimagined into queer power forms. Using various subjects such as flowers, witches, dishes and various domestic items, and ancient Goddess imagery, she reframes and reimagines them into sources of power, strength and knowledge. Her work can be viewed through a lens of queer inclusivity that prioritizes connectedness to nature, fluidity and protest. Through the use of humor and beauty her work seeks to subvert and terrorize the patriarchy.
She received a B.F.A. from the University of Kansas and an M.F.A. from the University of Connecticut. Her work has been exhibited widely including Lancaster Museum of Art, PA, Art Space in New Haven, CT, Cindy Rucker Gallery and Morgan Lehman Gallery in New York City as well as Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and Cleve Carney Gallery in Chicago, IL. Dierdorf has been artist-in-residence at several arts programs including the Virginia Center for Creative Arts (Amherst, VA), Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), Wassaic Art Project (Wassaic, NY), Mudhouse Art Colony (Crete, Greece) and others.
Yvette Molina is a Mexican-American artist focused on the relationship between justice and caring. Her work is multidisciplinary and includes public engagement, performance, processional banners, painting, ceramics, and collage. Learning and incorporating traditional techniques is significant to her practice as a means of connecting to embodied forms of ancestral knowledge. Yvette has exhibited across the US and internationally at venues such as the the Tang Teaching Museum, Brattleboro Museum, the Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Arsenal Contemporary, the American Embassies in Uruguay and Latvia, and the Stockholm Fringe Festival. Born in Kansas City, she splits her time between Oakland, CA and Brooklyn, NY.
Melisa Gereççi (b. 1983) is an itinerant visual artist who grew up between Houston and Istanbul. She uses drawing, printmaking, and sculpture to tell stories about movement, memory, and loss, often through installations and experimental narrative structures. Her work is held by the Watson Library at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the the Newark Public Library, and the Fine Arts Library at The University of Texas at Austin. She has been commissioned for public art installations on the East Coast Greenway and awarded grant support by The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts. Melisa earned a BA from UT Austin (Plan II) and a JD from NYU School of Law.